Clinton to Congress: No More Independent Counsels

WASHINGTON: In a not-so-surprising change of heart, the Clinton
administration is opposing the renewal of the Independent Counsel statute, a law
it enthusiastically backed just five years ago. Deputy Attorney
General Eric Holder made the case to Congress Tuesday for letting the
21-year-old, Watergate-inspired law expire this June, arguing that the
Justice Department is fully capable of investigating senior-level
administration officials now covered by the statute, and that, as in
Watergate, the attorney general can hire a special prosecutor in
extraordinary cases. Whether or not that's true is "the heart of the
controversy," says TIME Justice Department correspondent Elaine Shannon. No
Democrat would have trusted Ed Meese to investigate the Reagan
administration, she notes, while "a lot of people believe Janet Reno is
highly partisan."

For now, Republicans and Democrats are mostly singing from the same choirbook on this issue. Though congressional Republicans hammered Janet Reno
for not appointing a special prosecutor to look into the Clinton-Gore
fund-raising machine, many in the GOP soured on the law after enduring
Lawrence Walsh's eight-year investigation of Iran-Contra during the Reagan and
Bush administrations. Republicans then raised many of the arguments
typically heard now from Democrats -- that the I.C.'s unlimited budget
and timetable vests too much power and too little accountability in one
person. But trashing the status quo still leaves the thorny political
problem of investigating top administration officials. Concludes Shannon:
"There is no solution that will satisfy everyone."